Today in Greece thousands took the streets in general strike, fighting the same anti-democratic program of social cuts and bankster bailouts that we are fighting on Wall Street. Today, people power shut Greece down.

Occupy Wall Street stands in solidarity with the people of Greece, and we are inspired by their bravery and resilience. We pledge friendship and mutual support with all people across the world fighting for democracy and economic justice. In a global economy, the struggle of the 99% is necessarily a global struggle.

We should hold the politicians accountable. They have been buying personal power by paying off Wall Street & Banks. Change comes in a Democracy by electing politicians that put their country first and not themselves first. Capitalism provided me with this computer, to communicate without the filter of the government or the elite’s control. It allows me to speak out against political corruption. We need to protest the Politicians that wrote the checks out of our accounts. Not just the people that received the checks. We need to let Washington know it is not ok to write checks out of our accounts. Join us on a march on Washington and the Whitehouse. Let’s show the crooked Politicians how a Democracy works. Politicians are the only electable leaders of this country. Lets remove the bad apples November 2012.

Take a look at "Debtocracy " (documentary with English, French, Spanish subtitles) a documenatary with interesting facts and perspectives on why Greece finds itself in today's state, reference to odious debt incurred by corrupt poloticians, Goldman Sachs, IMF....and Ecuador as an example of country that elected a politician who put his country and its people first.

As opposed to the people who really control things that we have no election power over. I would agree to get rid of the bad apples but the barrel is rotten all through. I know you think you are battling anti capitalists but the truth is you are battling limited capitalists, and there is quite a difference. Also, you have the check writing wrong. It is the other way around.

It wasn't the Banks or Wall Street writing the checks. It was the politicians and there Multi-Trillion dollar fake stimulus pkg’s and the Politicians Stimulus programs printing more money in QE1, QE2 and QE3. And I wouldn't throughout the baby with the bath water. We just need some ethical politicians that believe stealing from the public is wrong. It doesn't matter Republican or Democrat. Get rid of them, if they voted on writing the checks to the special interest, Banks or Wall Street. It is that easy. People need to protest in Washington.

I think I will agree with you, at least I agree to the extent that the stimulus did not represent the needs of the people as fully as it should have. There were protests outside the White House, so they are going on all over. But I dont think Wall Street should be off the hook here.

can folks provide links about this? I heard they had a bunch of Greek bonds, but I also heard something about them having CDS deals on a bunch of it, so they will actually get paid in full if Greece defaults, whereas if Greece is able to re-negotiate and pay, say 80% back, Goldman actually makes less money. So they are pushing against a work-out deal and for Greek default, to make a profit. Any info?

GRASSROOTS REPORTS from Greece:
http://www.occupiedlondon.org/blog/
occupied: hundreds of high schools, univiersities, and government departments. people turning electric back on for neighbors when govt. turns it off, etc...

He focuses on the Euro bank crisis as a whole, but his stuff on Goldman is pretty scary sounding:

"As
we sit at the precipice of devastating European banking failure, upon
which Goldman is heavily levered into through excessive French exposure
...I feel many of you should take heed when I say this bank's risk is
woefully underappreciated. ...in absolute terms [of derivatives risk exposure], JPM leads this list with total notional value of
derivative contracts at $78 trillion, or 1.3x times the world's GDP.
However, in relative terms, Goldman Sachs leads the list with
total value of notional derivatives at 537 times its total assets
compared with 44x for JPM, 46x for Citi and 23x for US Banks (average)."

Everybody knows any country bailout means it's actually the bailout of that country's bond holders. In this case it might be Goldman Sachs or other major US banks. So obviously Tim Geithner was very concerned that EU is not giving Greece a bailout package.

The bond holders should incur losses, otherwise they will keep lending money without caring for downside risk.

but if they have CDS contracts insuring against losses in case of default, they don't care about downside risk, and if it looks like they might have to take a haircut, they'd prefer default. see what i'm saying?

Well I am sure CDS had something to do with it but what they did was buy enough Greek debt to get Greece into the EU. So now that Greece owes Goldman is doing what it always does: Acting like they have nothing to do with the problem.

well, it makes sense to me that it they were helping greece hide their debt figures, they'd know that eventually the shoe was going to drop and greece would be thrown into a crisis. perfect reason to bet against them and then just sit back and wait for the default. it's just a theory, but i thought i read something about this somewhere, which is why i was asking..... thanks for your responses, BTW.

Greetings to you, brothers across the Atlantic Ocean. From Italy we want you be on our side against those social parasites who have been plundering our life and our future since Wall Street foundation. Like aristocrats and priests before French Revolution, we now have got a lot of financial men and politicians who are taking the bread off our mouth and starving our children, presenting us only a factory of hot air. We all must be more and more united by far fighting those insatiable locusts. In Italy, some angry people wish to attack with dynamite Parliament and go on the rubble with bulldozers and hang the politicians like happened to Mussolini in 1945, in Milan at Loreto Square. If our politicians keep on not caring people will, there's a strong risk that extremists will prevail over, like in Grece, during last mounths. We are fed up of paying taxes to maintain in comfort banks and politics instead of having schools, roads, hospitals, bridges. Banks play "Monopoly Game" on a global scale with our money and do not realize this to everyone at all. And in U.S. banks are behaving even worse ! They've made you loose your house, money, job, future, dignity. Their foolish behaviour provides infinite growth in a finite system: in our planet, consumers and resources are finite in number: only our poverty is likely to become infinite. Thank you very much Mr. Reagan (God rest his soul), Mr. Bush (father and son, the second one worse than the first one), Mr. Obama (ineffectual wimp), all of them accomplices one another and on payroll of the happy few (Rockfeller, Rotschild, soros and so on). Thanks to them, "American dream" has become "American nightmare" and thanks to their jumble of ramblings, the whole world is a poor men's deluge. "Deregulation", "Globalization" these words have destroyed our happiness.

Yes the wealthy have been working on this for decades, they finally feel like they are ready to make their move of global control. They are attempting a coup with money as the force. They have bought governments and the media, they have their minions throughout the media trying to push their agenda and dismantle anybody against them as you can see by some of the posters even on here.
The general wants and attitude of the majority of Americans is not what our corporate owned media portrays it to be, the majority of what the main stream media pushes, cnn, fox, pbs, is nothing but the wealthy's propaganda. Their biggest fear is that the people unite, it is why they continually strive to keep the people divided as is so obvious in the American political system. The feelings of the people in Italy are shared by many here in America too, it is high time we united and stop the dark forces of the powers that be.

Make no mistake, the austerity measures and privatization scams being implemented in Hellas and Europe are the same kinds of scams that are now being implemented here in the U.S. under different names and under different ideologies. As a participant from the occupation movement in Los Angeles, I stand in solidarity with the Hellenic people against the dismantling of their country by the international oligarchies who have no allegiances to nation or culture. Hellas is the birthplace of DEMOCRACIA and we must protect and restore that idea.

They don't bail us out. They EU is bailing out it's banks not us. That's what they want you to believe. The money of the loan go directly to their banks. They just transport the dept from the banks to the taxpayers. We still have to pay everything with increasing interests. They are just exploiting us. Visit Greece and you will learn the thruth. We are not NYC. The don't use pepper spray, they hit us until we end up in the hospital with broken ribs. Things here are really bad.... Thank you for your solidarity. We will meet on 15/10!! Greeting from Athens. Greg. ps.drop the "ς" from "Αλληλεγγύης" (-:

Greek government lied to the EU so they can get in on all the programs. Greece should not even be bailed out. Greece IS the equivalent of Goldman Sachs. They cooked the books!
Sorry for the Greek people but they voted in that same government of crooks. Now they need to pay for it.
They should get NO help from anybody.

How could we lie to eu? do you think they did not know what situation they had created in Greece since 1980? omg..i see no difference in America...left or right is there also...republicans or democrats you vote there every time and you are sorry for us??? you should better be sorry that your ignorance bombed and killed millions around the world for a century now..oh...yes...i forget... the liberating and democratic America..omg wake up!!!---and how can you say that we have to pay it...to pay what? something that we as people of Greece did not create? wake up and watch less media please---and please tell my how exactly they bail as out???by putting us in more debt???--you have to understand that we the people of this world have to be one strong fist against our manipulators, which everywhere in the world are the same and controled by the same forces

This same scene is playing out around the globe at the same time, it is pretty obvious this is an orchestrated "crisis". It's the real powers that be, names and faces we don't even know making a power play to turn the world into a plutocracy where governments only play the part of the intermediary between the ruling class and the 99 percent.
The governments job will be just as we see them doing right now. to enforce the ruling classes decisions upon the rest of us, whether it be by persuasion, lies, or force.

You should add this to the demands:
1, Prosecute banksters for crimes against humanity because they had caused endless pain and many millions had died due to their greed.
2, Transform banking services in interest free public service.

After years of socialism in Greece the country is now broke and has to cut back. the people in Greece are protesting because the government is trying to cut back on some of their "free" stuff. The Greek government should default on the loans, let the banks go under and pull out of the EU all together. Things would be tough for a while but in the long run they would be much better off.

Dear friends! I'm happy for you. 1% owns nearly everything. Oligarchs Wall Street makes money on wars and poverty. U.S. debt - 14.6 trillion, the largest in the world. Oligarchs print more and more dollars without any control.

I am not in favor of the IMF or the World Bank but unions, greek and american, are entrenched interests that actively barricade the change that is needed.The teacher's union has ruined the education system in this country by defending bad teachers. You can spend 20 years pushing buttons in an MTA elevator, earning more than most people, and retire at 45 with a full pension. Unions are the problem, not the solution, here as in Greece. I was so excited but if this direction remains unchanged, it will be clear that unthinking partisans are running this movement (and certainly this webpage) and you can count me out.

You are not a facist but you are mistaken. The first thing is that unions have never been weaker but amazingly, the 1% have never been stronger. Do you think this is a coincidence? All the stories you hear about unions are being put out there, quite often, by the 1%. There are some things wrong with unions but mostly that has to do with being in bed with business leaders and leaving their original purpose. But opposing unions leaves the people disorganized and powerless.

Flsupport, I appreciate your candor. I can only speak from my own personal experience. As a young person looking for a job, the union in my trade was a barrier to me, not an assistant. The established workers were protected and the young were left to fend for themselves amidst a work environment where most employers were 'union only.' This is not propaganda, it is my own personal experience. To be absolutely clear, I was a lighting designer unable to find work because IATSE controlled many of the venues. Also, they would not accept me as a lighting designer, though I had worked for a few years with a band. I was allowed only to be a stage hand as I watched for less capable guys ruin shows for the audience that I could have made stellar. The entire organization was adamantly against change. As such, I can clearly see how the many workers in this country, who have been in a particular trade for a while, are protected by unions. But I just don't see it for the young people in the park trying to change the way things are done. That's why I'm confused.

Well, I can only say a couple of things. First, so you dont think that I am some union organizer, I am not. I have worked both ways and I can tell you that unless you are a professional (lawyer, doctor etc.) you are far more likely to not only be paid better but recieve better treatment when you are in a union. The simple reason is that you are under legal contract. Now if you individually signed a contract, you would have similar legal protection but your average WalMart guy has none of this (and God knows the people in China have even less). What I say is that it would be nice to work on union reform right now for situations like your own but the problem is this plays into the hands of the corporate elites. They have no desire to see a strong union prescense in this country because the profit margins drop when the union membership rises. Everyone says that teachers or police or firefighters are just whiney and spoiled because of their unions but I have watched as people who support Wall Street have taken away, not only their right to collectively bargain but after that, health benefits and pensions. And it isn't usually lack of money but rather lack of will that causes that. In any case, if the unions stayed strong, these people would not have to worry about that. Keep in mind that there are many reasons to be a teacher but salary really isnt one. And I would like to keep well qualified people in teaching positions.

Greece is a totally different situation. The IMF et al. is bailing out Greece, not Greece bailing out it's banks. The people of Greece don't seem to understand that unless Greece's government makes cuts and restructures they won't have any jobs at all. And these guys have been protesting long before anyone even though about Occupy Wall Street. You had nothing to do with it. Please stop likening yourselves to countries that are actually in turmoil. Appreciate how lucky you are.

that's total bullshit. you seem to be the one who isn't following things in the long term.
when the IMF demands austerity packages and structural adjustment programs it destroys the wealth of a country's people, and they ONLY demand these things to countries they are NOT trying to save, when they are trying to save the foreign investors is when they advocate those policies. They never advocate them for the US or UK.
The crisis is Greece was MANUFACTURED by a global banking system (including IMF) that extracts wealth from less powerful countries. Latin America has already figured out not to listen to the IMF's bullshit. Greece will learn, too.

I see the media in America are doing great their job...Are you serious? Greeks are lazy? That was the problem??? Look i am greek and that is really unacceptable---you have the support from us, but,what i read here really makes me angry, most of the greeks work 10-12 hours a day, without even taking their overtimes, even if the max is 48 hours per week, and we are lazy??? come on dont say such things please...think first...all the world has the same problems, we have to understand that the same people manipulate all the world

@chigrl "How lucky you are!!???" I think you don't know what you are talking about! You are describing Greece's problems in terms of popular media propaganda and an overall scenario as if economics had nothing to do with politics. You should trust me when I say other than sovereign dept people are protesting for the same reasons. An economic elit coluding with politician and using mass media to convince the public that their misery is the only way. If I were to interpret your movement from the eyes of the Economist then you are all lazy losers that want free money!!

Exactly. Greece has a sovereign debt crisis fueled by public over-spending, and the loose regulations of the Eurozone. OWS is about (as far as I can tell) political corruption & ethics-- Washington's cozy relationship with those at the "top 1%" and their over-influence on policy matters.

public over-spending? nope. fall in GDP from 2008 financial crisis made what was sustainable un-sustainable. that is not due to the "greed" of Greeks (who are less wealthy than most americans) but due to greed of a banking system with no fear of failure.

we didn't cook anything. our politicans did. and lied to us too. If you think that way do you want us to say that "they (USA) did the Iraq war" ? But we know you didn't. The goverment did. And it's not about public spending. It's about stealing and droping our currency in favor of the big firms.

You can draw a few loose parallels between Greece and the US, but as far as connecting the protests? I don't know. I don't particularly want to be associated with Greece and their sovereign debt/Eurozone/austerity crisis. The OWS movement isn't going to gain much from that association.

They've been cooking their books for years though in order to skirt EU debt laws. Besides, if all it takes is a recession (read: an inevitability) to trigger the sort of crisis that's rolling through Greece right now, then I wouldn't exactly call 100% debt-to-GDP a "stable" status quo, especially for a small country unable to absorb the fallout.

and if we were throwing molotov cocktails, you can be sure that we would be facing police repression. just think: if they occupy athens - the birthplace of democracy - how powerful a symbol would that be?

Peaceful works the best. What the Greeks need to do is a general strike for more than one day. In addition, they just need to sit for long enough. I know that sounds funny but really either they will face what the Egyptians faced or they will win. No one in the EU is listening to them. There needs to be a broader movement and the people with money need to cover this problem because they helped create it.

they already had huge square occupations and the police tear gassed them and brutally kicked them out. what will you do when the NYPD does that to Liberty Plaza? Maybe the first few times you'll go back and peacefully re-occupy. But eventually you will have to defend your right to occupy space to organize dissent. wake up.

No, it is the same thing 100 times. Check the independence movement in India and our own civil rights movement. They gas you and bring out the hoses and the dogs and you just go on marching. But not only that. You must also make the institutions they rely on hurt. Stop shopping at corporations you disagree with......Walmart has Chinese living in God awful conditions to produce inexpensive glassware, shoes and textiles, among other things. If you are supporting them when they do that, you are supporting corporate greed and maltreatment of workers.

i respect it. as long as those into non-violence respect that some people don't have the privilege or desire to practice it when they are getting their asses kicked by cops and the top 1%. it takes all of us!

You're in Montreal (I'm actually from Montreal, Laval is an error in google maps I didn't bother to correct) - how old were you at the time of the 2nd Summit of the Americas (the one in Québec). - I was a teen then and I was at the G20 protest a month before. The Montreal Police Service charged the crowd with horses. The SPVM is currently tracking down "suspected subversives" as though we were criminals.

Trust me it won't take molotovs before our police starts to hurt and kill people.

I respect a diversity of tactics: that means violence when needed and non-violence when needed. I refuse to lose solidarity for comrades because of suicidal non-violence. Gandhi was non-violent but without the violent uprising in the north of India, he would have been a footnote. MLK was non-violent but respected diversity of tactic - letter from Birmingham jail is a must read.

No, Gandhi was succesful, as was MLK because they remained non violent despite other violence around them, despite the violence done to them. This movement should thank its lucky stars for the heavy handedness of the police.

No, I think not. I won't debate it further other than to point you to other movements which were violent and came to nothing, or something worse than they started out as. The French Revolution, The Cuban Revolution, The Bolshevik Revolution along with many groups, like The Black Panthers, who were discredited by history.
The best way is peace, boycotts and economic warfare. The pocketbook is often where the heart is.

the pocketbook as a weapon is the EXACT problem. it is how the rich get to decide what kind of world we live in.
it's why 200 foot yachts get built for millionaires while people starve to death.

those of us with little money in our pocketbooks have to figure out a different way to have a voice. we are constrained by the institutions we live under, which is why my poor Mom shops at Wal-Mart. Your class privilege is blinding you to the fact that, for those of us who have little money, waging was with our pocketbook is completely ineffective and absurd.

um, what about the AMERICAN REVOLUTION? duh! General Washington didn't sit down in front of the British. They started by illegally destroying property (boston tea party) and then waging guerilla warfare. was that a failure?

are you talking about the french revolution of 1848, the foundation of all modern states that have the premise freedom and equality? i dont know what you can call successfull if not the french revolution. and btw what was ghandi successfull at except making the ruling class indian? you think thats awesome?

If I remember Gandhi did not care who the "ruling class" was. What happened was that factions began trying to one up each other, as we are doing here. As a result, it ended in disharmony.And you know which French Revolution I am talking about. It certainly was not 1848.

Look, they cut off heads and established a dictator in place of a King. It was horrible! Napoleon was no Hitler but he was not a benevolent guy. So I stand by what I said which is not that it was not successful but that the end result was the same or worse than what was in place before it. 1848 bears no resemblence of 1789. Not even close. Even our revolutionaries could not stomach what happened in 1789.

So you won't debate me and to prove you're right you will affirm the consequent and proudly stand by your fallacy/ Awesome. I'm through.

The Black Panthers were very much not discredited by history. Only discredited by a bunch of middle class whites trying to pat themselves on the back as to how progressive they were to have paid attention to the nice blck preacher (so long as he wasn't saying scary shit about socialism or resistance, then it's completely forgotten).

Also

French Revolution - violence started as reaction against invasion by the entire fucking european continent, serfdom abolished, feudalism ended, even with the monarchy restored in 1815 tptb were very careful not to remove too much of its results. The 1848 revolution would also abolish slavery.

Cuban Revolution: While cuba is not a first world nation, and not especially democratic either, it's hard to argue that Cuba did not make quite a few social gains.

Bolshevik revolution - The violence started with the civil war, which the whites themselves started, taking advantage of the breakup of the congress of soviets between factions. I won't argue that the ultimate results of bolshevism were great from a human pov, not even Zizek would say that, but it still took Russia out of the middle ages. If anything, the civil war is what made the bolshevik takeover possible at all.

Democracy does not necessarily lead to socialism, but we already have a form of socialism. The difference is that it is benign...not totalitarian. No one wants mob rule. No one (well a few people but not many) wants Marxism. But people want fairness and those in power taunt us for that.

There has never been a true democratic state as well as a truly socialist state.
What if we had a country (and a world) where the needs of all were meet and the resources shared among the population? Where ones brothers need were taken as a measure or ones own? That could have the elements socialism (mostly) with perhaps a part of capitalism. Competition creates a division among people. Greed has been taken to such an extreme in the global sense that is killing people everyday. To profit from someones poor health is evil. There will be a way out. The direct action we are taking necessary for the leaders to follow the people. --off topic-- ten just arrested here in Seattle this afternoon at Occupy Seattle.

Correct. Capitalism is not the problem. Greed is the problem. Friendly competition, or competition that benefits the consumer is something we should all want. But competition that benefits only the entity is generally greedy, one sided competition that hurts everyone but the winner. Keep Seattle peaceful will you....for legitimacy keep it peaceful.

We hope to. I was at the occupation on Monday (in Seattle). There is a fringe element there that might be called agitators They are not going to back down. I'm trying to keep an open mind. One has to take the recent local history in context... there has been bad blood with the police. Quite a few beatings, one outrageous killing of an Native American (First Nation) and the police department is being investigated by the Feds. A challenge to keep cool heads perhaps.

am just ecstatic debates like this are even occurring, I worked for Green Peace in the late 80's and I had hope of making a difference, but over many years of being a struggling artist/entrepreneur/mother and being bogged down by bills and taxes and the false dream of the middle class I gave up hope of people seeing the destructive nature of our system. Back then I would never shop at McDonalds or Walmart but in the past few years I have needed to survive, and have lived a hypocritical life so that my daughter could have what others had. Also if I had opened my mouth to my clients or my family about what my true political views and societal visions were then I would have been simply laughed at. Now I am out of work at 42 and live with my parents and am ready to start over where I left off. I have been so angry at you "millennials" since I lost my job because to one of your generation because of their disregard for my work experience and desire for my position and clients at the job from which I was laid off. But I am happy to say I am now proud, so proud, I feel that you are intelligent, fresh and entitled, and I am loving that about you! We the people deserve respect! But non-violence is the right way if we want this movement to have any staying power. Please for the sake of the older generations do not become violent. Of course some people will fight each other, It happened in India, it happened in the civil rights movement in this country. All we can do it try to stay calm. Stand firm and do not back down. We respect the great leaders and saints because they were non-violent, but it does not mean we will all be as disciplined as them. But put your best foot forward. Turn the other cheek as often as you can. Demand respect. Demand conversation. Do not give in to our animal nature. Remember we are all human. That is how we want to be treated, that is how we must treat others. Don't let the dream die this early. Hold your anger, let it simmer. Bring the power of your generations greater education and depth of understanding to this movement. Be brave. Be Strong. Keep Calm and Carry On. Inspire others to do the same. It's a new world vision, keep it fresh keep it pure. You have inspired me and the world. Please don't let us down.